


the dream of home

by aces



Category: Doctor Who: Eighth Doctor Adventures - Various Authors
Genre: Comfort, Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-26
Updated: 2010-05-26
Packaged: 2020-10-06 02:27:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20499362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aces/pseuds/aces
Summary: Fitz has callused fingers.





	the dream of home

**Author's Note:**

> A thank you for kindkit, who asked for reasonably happy Fitz/Eight.

Fitz wakes from a deep sleep to the Doctor rubbing his fingers. He mumbles something—even he doesn’t know what, his brain still so deep in its sleep-fogged state—coughs, clears his throat, and tries again. “Wha?”

“Mmm?” The Doctor doesn’t quite sound awake himself, or maybe he’s just being his usual absent-minded-brain-larger-than-a-planet-who-has-time-for-the-likes-of-_your_-mere-mortal-thoughts self. Not that he’s _always_ like that, Fitz has to give the Doctor credit. Fitz is sometimes quite good at holding all the Time Lord’s attention.

His fingers, for example, seem to have the Doctor riveted.

They are lying in Fitz’s bed. Fitz had wandered around as many of the bedrooms as he could find after he rejoined the Doctor, after the mess with Anji’s boyfriend was sorted and Anji joined them, and he found one that had a big bed with a mattress that cushioned, supported, as you slept. (It was, he had later told the Doctor, quite fun bouncing on all those beds to test them. The Doctor had looked a little disappointed that he’d missed out, and Fitz had been strongly tempted to invite him for a second round. He’d resisted suggesting it at the time, but later—much later—he hadn’t, and it had been just as fun as Fitz intimated. Perhaps even more so.)

A few weeks or months after Fitz declared this room his, the Doctor had dragged in and dumped on the bed a giant, fluffy comforter. Fitz had stared at it in disbelief. “You’re always complaining about the cold,” the Doctor had explained, shuffled his feet, and disappeared before Fitz could close his mouth, take a breath, and reopen it to ask what would probably have turned out to be a very silly question.

Today had been Laundry Day—the Doctor had insisted, telling Fitz everything in the room smelled like cigarette smoke—and Fitz had suggested they celebrate the clean sheets and clean, fluffy comforter. This probably means it should be Laundry Day again, but for the moment everything is soft and quiet and warm, and Fitz doesn’t feel like moving.

The Doctor is methodically rubbing at each of his fingers, kneading and pushing at the skin, stroking along the curves and bumps of the knuckles, tracing the whorls and curves of his fingerprints. Fitz had fallen asleep—or been maneuvered after he fell asleep; the Doctor is very good at _molding_ people into the position in which he wants them—with his head on the Doctor’s shoulder, one of his legs draped over one of the Doctor’s. All very cozy, and that’s the Doctor for you. Total snuggler. Fitz always seems to wake up with as much of his skin touching as much of the Doctor’s as is humanly—or Gallifreyan…ly—possible.

Fitz sometimes wonders what the hell the Doctor _does_ while he sleeps, since the Time Lord rarely bothers. He’s asked the Doctor about that, on more than one occasion, and he never gets a straight answer. “Bad dreams,” the Doctor will say one time; “Sleep is for tortoises” another; “I meditate when I have to,” yet another.

Eventually, Fitz knows, he will either stop asking or he will start keeping better track of the Doctor’s answers, just to see if he can ever detect a pattern.

“You have callused fingers,” the Doctor says, rousing Fitz, who had started falling asleep again, the impromptu massage the Doctor giving him lulling him back into near-total relaxation.

“Um,” says Fitz with all the intelligence he can muster at the moment, “yes, I do.”

The Doctor moves from his fingers to first his right palm, then his left. Fitz closes his eyes. “Does this hurt?” the Doctor asks.

“Ye-no,” Fitz says. “Don’t stop.”

Silence for a moment, as the Doctor works at his palms. “You have callused hands,” he repeats.

“And you just noticed this now?”

He feels the Doctor shrug slightly under, next to him. “Consciously, I suppose,” he says. He lays his hand flat against Fitz’s, studies them against each other.

“Guitar,” Fitz says, also studying their hands together, palm to palm. Palmers kiss, isn’t that a line from Shakespeare? “Years and years of guitar will do that to a person.”

“Mmm.” The Doctor turns his hand around so as to grasp Fitz’s and gives his palm a kiss, and Fitz has long since stopped wondering about the Doctor’s apparent telepathic powers. “I like your fingers.”

“Thank you.” Fitz tries to keep his voice as grave as possible.

They lie in silence for another moment, resting against each other, hands still intertwined. And then Fitz reaches over the side of the bed and finds the guitar neck, pulling the instrument onto the bed gently. It usually isn’t far from the bed; he sometimes likes to strum a little before going to sleep. It helps him unwind, helps his thoughts go still and quiet.

He settles his guitar in his lap, the Doctor shifting enough to give it and them both enough space, without quite relinquishing all touch. Fitz spends a little while tuning by ear, the Doctor wincing and shaking his head on occasion when Fitz tightens or loosens a string a little too much. Eventually they are both satisfied, but Fitz still doesn’t play anything recognizable, just snatches and chords and brief flashes of what could, potentially, become song, if he let the melody linger.

The Doctor lets his head fall back into the pillows—big and fluffy to match the comforter, though they had only showed up later, when Fitz wasn’t in the room to stand around giving the Doctor his best gobsmacked look—and closes his eyes and breathes deeply. Silent and still and calm, and it is very, very rare that Fitz ever sees him like this.

Gently, he moves into a proper song, real notes connecting to each other, individually plucked and just a little bit mournful. “It’s raining, it’s pouring,” he sings along softly as he swings into the smoother chords, “the old man is snoring. Bumped his head, and he went to bed, and he couldn’t get up in the morning. Rain, rain, go away; come again some other day.”

“Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight,” the Doctor answers, just as hushed. “Wish I may, wish I might, and a wish I wish tonight.”

Fitz lets the chords trail off, die away. The Doctor takes his hand from the guitar, laying his own hand flat against Fitz’s again. Fitz can feel his calluses against the Doctor’s smoother skin. For a moment, Fitz doesn’t breathe. Then he moves his hand, interlacing his fingers with the Doctor’s and bringing them both up to his lips so he can kiss the Doctor’s knuckles.

The Doctor’s head tilts, nudging itself between Fitz’s head and shoulder. “Mm,” the Time Lord says. “I think I could sleep.”

Fitz smiles up at the ceiling. He gently places the guitar back on the floor again, letting go of the Doctor’s hand. And then he turns into the Doctor, spooning against him, and the Doctor obligingly shifts so they are both comfortable, taking Fitz’s hand again and holding it against his chest. Fitz can feel the double-thump of the Doctor’s hearts.

“Rain, rain,” Fitz sings quietly in the Doctor’s ear, “go away. Come again some other day…”

He and the Doctor both fall asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Fitz and the Doctor are singing something very like Peter, Paul, & Mary's version of "It's Raining."


End file.
